
答案
标准答案:
Realism came as a reaction against ‘the lie’ of romanticism and sentimentalism. The battle between ‘idealists’ and ‘realists’ provided the major issue of American literary history after the Civil war (1861-1865). Literature began to pay less attention to general ideas and more to the immediate facts of life. As a way of writing, realism has been applied in almost every literature throughout history. But as a literary movement, realism is a period concept and it refers to the approach of realist fiction occurred at the latter part of the 19th century.